List of Vuelta a España general classification winners

The Vuelta a España is an annual road bicycle race. Established in 1935 by the Spanish newspaper Informaciones, the Vuelta is one of cycling's three "Grand Tours", along with the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia.[1] Initially, the race was held in April/May, but in 1995 it was moved to September.[2] The race usually covers approximately 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi), although this has varied, passing through Spain and countries with a close proximity in Europe.[3] The race is broken into day-long segments called stages. Individual finishing times for each stage are totalled to determine the overall winner at the end of the race. The course changes every year, but has traditionally finished in Madrid.[4]

Individual times to finish each stage are totalled to determine the winner of the general classification at the end of the race. The rider with the lowest aggregate time at the end of each day wears the leader's jersey. Since 2010 this has been a red jersey; previously it was gold.[5] Other classifications have been calculated: those still in use are the points classification, in 2010 represented by a green jersey; the mountains classification, in 2010 represented by a blue dotted jersey; and the combination classification, in 2010 represented by a white jersey.[6]

Roberto Heras holds the record of most victories with four, although his win in 2005 was only official after a successful appeal in court overturning his initial disqualification for EPO in the 2005 race.[7]Alberto Contador and Tony Rominger have both won three times. Spanish cyclists have won the most Vueltas; 23 cyclists have won 29 Vueltas between them. French cyclists are second with nine victories and Belgian riders are third with seven wins.[8] The current champion is Simon Yates of Mitchelton–Scott, who won the 2018 Vuelta a España.

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Alberto Contador in the gold jersey, which was replaced by a red jersey for 2010, representing the leader in the general classification.

The Vuelta a España was established in 1935 by the newspaper Informaciones following on from the success of the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia which had also been established by newspapers.[8] The first race was won by Gustaaf Deloor, who won again the following year.[9] The Vuelta was suspended for four years from 1937 to 1940 due to the Spanish Civil War. The first race after the civil war in 1941 was won by Julián Berrendero, who also won the following year. The Vuelta was suspended between 1943 and 1944 due to the Second World War. Delio Rodríguez won the first Vuelta after the war, Spanish riders won two more Vueltas in 1946 and 1948. The Vuelta was not held in 1949. Emilio Rodríguez was the victor in 1950, before the Vuelta was suspended from 1951 to 1954 as Spain's isolation during this period led to dwindling international interest in the race.[8]

Contador won his second Vuelta in 2012.[28] American Chris Horner, became the oldest Grand Tour winner at the age of 41, when he won the Vuelta in 2013.[29] Contador won the race for the third time in 2014, as he beat Chris Froome by 1' 10".[30] Fabio Aru won in 2015, taking the red jersey from Tom Dumoulin in the second-to-last stage thanks to an excellent team strategy. Tactics played a key role in Nairo Quintana's 2016 win, when he aligned with Contador on the fifteenth stage and blew the race apart. In 2017, after six attempts which included three second-place finishes, Froome finally won the race that had eluded him and completed the rare Tour-Vuelta double, having just come off of his fourth Tour de France victory. A year later, after a heartbreaking final few days in the Giro d'Italia, Simon Yates won the 2018 edition, giving Great Britain its second consecutive Vuelta win and becoming the first country to win all three Grand Tours in the same year with three different riders, and only the third instance that one nation has one all three Grand Tours in a season (the last occurring ten years ago when Spain's Alberto Contador won the 2008 Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España, and Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France).

A. ^Roberto Heras was the winner at the podium ceremony in Madrid on the last day of the 2005 Vuelta a España, but subsequently was found to have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs during stage 20 of the race. The Spanish cycling federation found him guilty of using Erythropoietin during the race and stripped him of his title, awarding the win to Denis Menchov.[21] However, in 2012 Roberto Heras was reinstated as the 2005 Vuelta a España champion when Spain's supreme court ruled in favor of Heras, citing procedural violations relating to the storage and handling of the urine samples.[31]